Shouldn't lawmakers reveal pre-session campaign cash sooner?

Budget woes may well crowd out most other issues during the General Assembly session that started this week.But some folks, still reeling from the scandal that marked the exit of House Speaker Glenn Richardson, have a different agenda.Lawmakers and others are floating proposals to do something about ethics -- or the lack thereof -- at the Capitol and on the campaign trail.One hesitates – or ought to hesitate – to add to the clutter. Still, there may be a relatively easy way to improve campaign finance disclosure.Why not make legislators disclose much sooner any campaign cash they receive between Dec. 31 and the first day of the session? (Money received on or before the 31st is usually reported before the session starts.) And why not also require the same of the governor and lieutenant governor, who are major players in the legislative process?The point, of course, is that the law bars state elected officials from accepting campaign money during the session.Behind the ban: The view that simultaneous lawmaking and milking folks with a stake in lawmaking is unseemly -- if not corrupting. But, year after year, politicians use the week before the opening gavel to hit up such people. Indeed, The Atlanta Journal Constitution recently listed 24 fundraisers due to have been held in the capital from Jan. 4 to Jan. 7. That was – surprise – the week before the session. As things stand now, such booty doesn’t have be reported until early April, when legislators usually have finished up and left town.So lobbyists, tobacco interests, insurers, trial lawyers, doctors, unions -- you can finish the list -- are invited to pre-session fundraisers. But no one knows what they give to whom it until after the decisions such money might influence – even if indirectly – have been made.Consider the alternative.You might think a bit harder about voting for a bill a big donor wants if it were known in advance that he was big donor. And harder still if, as is sometimes the case, his spouse, relatives and employees also chipped in.So why not give lawmakers, the governor and the lieutenant governor a week or so after the session starts to report their take? Much of that period typically is dominated by mostly ceremonial hoopla.Then, by the time the real business of legislation starts, people can find out which side whose bread is buttered on.Do I have a dog in the hunt? You bet. Sen. X stripping his bill of requirements that widget-making machines be safe makes for a pretty good yarn.But it makes for an even better yarn if – just weeks before – widget makers and their pals pumped big bucks into his campaign coffers.Maybe there’s no connection between the money and the amendment. Or how anyone votes on it.If so, why not let Sen. X and friends explain all that before the amendment -- or at least before the bill goes to a vote?Is such a new reporting period impractical?Maybe.In need of tweaking? Probably.Worth talking about?What do you think?